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Wednesday, June 17, 2015

BBC Far Eastern Relay Station: The Return to Singapore

BBC Far Eastern Relay Station (fllicker.com)

The
story of the BBC Far Eastern Relay Station at its four different locations
spans a total of ¾century, beginning before the
beginning of World War 2, right up to the present time. This important shortwave relay station has
been located at Jurong out from Singapore city on the island of Singapore;
Ekala out from Colombo on the island of Ceylon, as it was in those days, or Sri
Lanka as it is identified these days; Tebrau near the southern tip of the the
Malay peninsula; and Kranji, back again on the island of Singapore.

That is our story here in Wavescan
today, the return of the BBC Far Eastern Relay station, back to Singapore,
though across the island from the previous location that was on the air in the
middle of last century. Jurong, the
original BBC location, is situated a dozen miles west of Singapore city, and
Kranji is located a dozen miles north of Jurong.

The comparatively new BBC
transmitter site at Kranji is also only a dozen miles distant from its
immediately previous location at Tebrau in Malaysia. The Kranji station is located in a swampy
abandoned area, close to the saltwater Johor strait that separates the island
from the Malay peninsula. The geographic
address states “off Turut Track”,
and this seems to be beyond the
knowledge and experience of the regular taxi services.

The 4 acre BBC property at Kranji is
very compact, with 10 transmitters and 22 antenna systems; and some of the
towers are actually standing in shallow seawater. The first necessity at this property back in
1975 was to raise the level of the entire property by 3 feet, and in order to
accomplish this, 800 truck loads of land fill were brought in every day.

However, the main 2 storey
transmitter building itself was built on piles as a safeguard against any
possibility of a rise in local water level.
The Transmitter Hall is in the same design as the BBC shortwave station
located at Woofferton in England.

The first transmitter for Kranji, a
250 kW Marconi model BD272 was removed from Tebrau in January
1977 and it was re-installed in the new transmitter building where it was
activated a little over a year later during the month of February (1978). The target date for the activation at Kranji
of the second transmitter from Tebrau was a few weeks later, March 5. At this stage, all of the construction work
on the buildings had been completed, and half of the towers were now standing.

The final broadcast from BBC Tebrau
ended on May 18 of the next year (1979).
Initially, the Malay government gave consideration to taking over the
BBC shortwave station for use in its own international communications. However instead, the entire facility has been
absorbed into the expanding local suburban area of Jahore Bahru.

The final completion date for all of
the facilities at BBC Kranji was in the Spring of the year 1979 and at this
stage there were 4 main transmitters at 100 kW and 4 at 250 kW, together with 3
at just 50 kW as stand by units. There
were also 22 antenna systems supported on 17 towers, mainly reversible
curtains. Electricity for the entire
station was mains power provided from the Singapore government electrical
system.

Programming
for the BBC Kranji was originally a shortwave feed from Daventry in England,
usually with two transmitters on the same channel, 17790 kHz. In addition, a local FM channel in Singapore
carried the BBC World Service via a transmitter co-sited with the Singapore
domestic transmitters at Bukit Temah in the center of the island. Program relay from London via satellite was
introduced at the end of August 1983.

In 1987, a 250 kW Marconi was
transferred from Daventry in England to Kranji, and just two years ago, another
250 kW transmitter was transferred from Skelton, also in England, to
Kranji. These days, there are officially
10 transmitters located in the BBC shortwave station at Kranji, 5 at 100 kW and
5 at 250 kW.

We should also mention that a dozen
years ago, Merlin Communications took over the operation of the BBC Far Eastern
Relay Station in Singapore. Merlin
subsequently became VT Merlin, and then VT Communications, and then this
organization was taken over as Babcock.
However, in all of these transmigrations, the BBC has still retained
ownership of the station itself.

Beginning
around 15 years ago, this BBC station in Singapore has also carried relay
programming on behalf of other international shortwave stations, including NHK
Tokyo, Radio Canada International, Radio Netherlands, Deutsche Welle in
Germany, Radio Australia, and several other stations as well, over varying
periods of time.

During
the past ¼century,
regular full data QSL cards have been available from the BBC at its Kranji
address, and additionally, some QSL cards have been posted out from the BBC in
London. Three different Singapore cards
are known, each with a photograph in color of the station itself.

Thus
far in this series of topics on the BBC Far Eastern Relay Station, we have
presented information regarding their consecutive facilities at Jurong
Singapore, Ekala Sri Lanka, Tebrau Malaysia and now Kranji Singapore. However, in
performing all of this very interesting research, we have uncovered
another location, albeit apparently a very temporary location. That is the story on another coming occasion
here in Wavescan.